CCAM #7: Since the Bible teaches us that Jesus is in bodily form....

[John Atkinson]

Since the Bible teaches us that Jesus is in bodily form now (Col. 2:9), then how does the Oneness Pentecostal person maintain that God is in the form of the Holy Spirit? Also, when Jesus returns, will He return in His body? Will God's form then revert to the form of the Son at a later date?

[Hnovilla]

His NAME is Jesus!

God IS NOT in the form of a spirit. God IS SPIRIT! "God is Spirit. And he seeks those who will worship him in spirit and in truth."
The 'form' that God showed himself in to John the Baptist was ONLY a sign to John; that John might know who "...the Lamb of God, that takes away the sins of the world..." might be.
It pleased God to dwell in the physical body of the Son, Jesus Christ. That was the Tabernacle which was foreshadowed in the wilderness, living among His people.
The Spirit cannot be limited to time or space; it cannot be confined to a temple made by hands, nor to one physical body.

I will leave the rest to more learned men.

Brother Villa

[drummerboy_dave]

Let's look at John 1.

Verse 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The Word was both with God and also, God Himself. This defies our normal human logic, so you can't use logic to understand biblical truth. It takes faith.

Verse 3: All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

So, which one made the world, God or the Word?

Verse 14: And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

The Word was made flesh [Jesus] and He lived with them. They saw His glory. He was full of grace and truth! It was the same as if they were to look at God Himself.

Verse 18: No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

But, they can't look at God Himself, because God is a spirit. God does not have eyes or a face at all. The only one born, [Jesus] has the mind and knowledge of God, because He is the spirit of God, living in a flesh of man.

Now this gives us, the basis to build on, in order to answer the rest.

On the cross, Jesus [the man] cried out, "God, why has thou forsaken me?" The sprit of God, then left him and the body died. Why is this important? Because God will never die, He is the eternal spirit.

When the time was come for Christ to rise, God [who is still a spirit] re-entered the dead body of flesh.

Revelation 4 says:

Verse 2: And immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne.

The One on the throne is Christ Jesus, our Saviour.

There always has been, is now, and will be at judgement, one God. He always was and always will be. He spoke all of creation into exhistance out of nothing. He will judge every soul that He created, by thier obedience to His word, and every soul will declare that Jesus is Lord.

Pardon me, but I just got excited!

[intheblood]

Solomons temple couldn't hold ALL of God, or whatever essence makes up God, and neither could the Lamb, nor 10 million Apostolics for that matter. Jesus is the express IMAGE of an omnipresent God! We will "see" Jesus on the throne, but you cannot "see" the invisable, omni-present Divine Being that stretches on and on and on forever!
Bro. Jimmie

[BroRutledge]

After reading these silly little questions ... It is easy to see why these people fell for that lie. If this is the best they can do to go against the truth... they have nothing...

I would be ashamed to let this list of questions represent me if I were a trinitarian...

These questions show that trinitarians don't even know beans about what the the People of the Truth are all about.

How sad.

Thank God for truth that is so far above these questions..that the ones who manufactured these silly little questions... will never hear us until they climb this mountain and come up to the place where we are meeting with the real God.

God bless
BroRutledge

[intheblood]

Well bro. rutledge, on behalf of these people, since I myself am a first generation apostolic, I couldn't see these truths either untill I found out that there WAS a different teaching than trinity, I did not look untill then. Once God opened my eyes I thought, man, this is so simple and straight forward, why couldn't I see this before? Why can't every body see it? Im just a dumb hick. People have to humble themself before God and ask Him like I did, "God who are you, trinity or one?" After a few days of this, He "told" me in a vision accompanied by understanding. Most people refuse to do that thinking that a long family tradition will save them. They say to themselves, my momma and my grandma believed this and are in heaven now, and if I question God now he will get mad at me for disbelief and I might not get to go see momma. Therefore I refuse to even think about what you are saying. I can see it in their eyes! They see what you are saying, but DENY it based on long traditions! I was blessed not to have but a very minimal amount of bible teaching when I was very young. Too much worldly wisdom, vain traditions, are keeping people out! lol I think I am rambling! Any way, point is, untill God removed the scales from my eyes, It was all as greek as Bro. Johns math to me! LOL And God won't do that for someone who comes to Him thinking they already know the answer, you got to clear your head and say, whats up God?
God bless,
Bro. Jimmie

[Jesuseeker7]

I am ashamed to say that "silly list of questions" represented me for awhile too.... I had never heard of Oneness, so when I did hear it I asked all kinds of crazy questions. Thank God I clung to the answers and left the questions behind... they do sound pretty dumb now that I know who God really is.

[tufluv]

Wow, DDave, I got excited too! I could feel the Spirit, like almost transported as a vision! Wow again! This spiritual 'sight' is so-o awesome! The LORD dwells in the midst of HIS people! Hallelujah!

As for what ITB said, I also did not even know, that I did not know. I had no idea that I had been baptized into a false doctrine. In fact, I was too out of it, to even think spiritually (backslidden), but I knew that I needed GOD more than ever, just to live! HE just decided I'd had enough, and gifted me with something I did not even know to ask for, thats why I often think of the verse that says (paraphrased) "If you as a father know to give your children good things, how much so our FATHER in heaven knows to give us (HIS children).."! HE knew what I needed before I knew I had a need for it! Wow, such love!

It did not take long for me to grasp the ONENESS doctrine, after some ongoing Home Bible study sessions. Within 4 months I was baptized! 6 yrs ago in about 2 wks from now! I'd never have guessed before that that I would know what I know now, and am still learning, a lot of it here!
Amazing Grace!

[Adoniyah]

Question
Since the Bible teaches us that Jesus is in bodily form now (Col. 2:9), then how does the Oneness Pentecostal person maintain that God is in the form of the Holy Spirit? Also, when Jesus returns, will He return in His body? Will God's form then revert to the form of the Son at a later date?

Answer:
Every man has a spirit. The substance of the man, which is his flesh and his unlimited spirit are not two persons, but only one. God is no different. The man Jesus is God whose spirit we know is the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Ghost. Yes he will return bodily as it is said that he shall come again in like manner as ye see him go away. Every eye shall behold him.

[Happy]

I agree with Bro Rutledge. In my experience many trinitarians have a wrong concept of Oneness teaching.

I attended a lecture by a Professor of a Theological College called "Why you must believe the doctrine of the trinity". That was a misnomer, because he never addressed that question at all.

What he did though, was teach Oneness for 95% of the lecture, and then right at the end added, "and this one God is in 3 persons"! He addressed both subordination (JWs) and modalism (us). He used the analogy of the theater stage to explain Oneness theology - God was "like" an actor who appears as the Father, and then later as the Son, and then later as the Holy Ghost. The ONLY argument he brought up against Oneness was this - when Jesus was baptised there was a voice from heaven "This is my son in whom I am well pleased" - was Jesus a ventriloquist?

This Professsor teaches all his students that we believe that when Jesus was on earth heaven was empty.

There was a question time at the end, but they only took questions like "who should we pray to - do we pray to each one equally?" and other such rubbish. I tried (unsuccessfully) to get to talk to him in the foyer to correct his wrong opinion.

As Hnovilla and Intheblood stated - God is a Spirit who fills the universe. When He was manifest in the flesh, reconciling the world unto Himself, He STILL was filling the universe.

When I had attended trintitarian churches, I could understand the Father and Son part, but not this Holy Ghost bit. So, like most so-called trinitarians, I didn't try to question it or even think about it. I put it in the too hard basket. When I first heard the message of One God, it answered so many of my questions! It was like a weight lifting from me, and I was free to understand God and truly worship HIM at last! I was no longer caught up in some incomprehensible mystery that made God seem so distant and removed from me. I found that this One God cared so much for ME that He came to earth as a man that I might be set free!

[Faithchild]

God fills the heavens and the Earth. There is no place where He is not. Jesus was 5 cubic feet of God captured in flesh. God (the Spirit) was on the outside of Jesus; God (the Spirit) was on the inside of Jesus. Jesus was the image of the invisible God. God made a portion of himself continuously visible for 33 1/2 years.

Think of the baptism of Jesus. The Spirit of God filled the heavens--a portion was revealed as a dove--a portion was baptized in water. Note that Jesus and/or the dove were NOT separate from the Spirit. The Spirit just revealed portions of Himself to mankind in those forms.

It's no problem for the Spirit, which is God, to reveal Himself whenever or however He wants. He's God!

[Donny Cage]

Again this is part of my letter to CARM...

7a. Since the Bible teaches that Jesus is in bodily form now, then how does the oneness Pentecostal person maintain that God is in bodily form of the Holy Spirit?

This is a prime example of how you have not only a misunderstanding of the oneness position, but also your own theology of Trinitarianism.

The Bible teaches that Jesus is both Spirit 2Cor 3:17 (http://biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&version=NASB&passage=Cor+3%3A17) (The Holy Spirit - there is only ONE Spirit) and Man (Luke 24:39 (http://biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&version=NASB&passage=Luke+24%3A39))(human in flesh "Son of God"). God was manifested in the flesh - 1timothy 3:16. When God did this, He stepped into a visible human body - thus taking on the term "Only Begotten Son of God". He is the EXPRESS Image of God's substance (Hebrews 1:3 (http://biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&version=NASB&passage=Hebrews+1%3A3)), He is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15 (http://biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&version=NASB&passage=Colossians+1%3A15)). God took on a permanent manifestation, but never stopped being God. God is still Spirit and He is operating through a human body.

Scripture confirms that Jesus operates in more than just a human body form.

Jesus told His disciples that He had to go away, and if He didn't the Helper (the Holy Spirit) would not come (John 16:7 (http://biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&version=NASB&passage=John+16%3A7)). We also know that Jesus wont return (in bodily form) until the restoration of all things (Acts 3:21 (http://biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&version=NASB&passage=Acts+3%3A21)). But He told His believers, "lo I am with you ALWAYS even until the end of the age" (Matthew 28:20 (http://biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&version=NASB&passage=Matthew+28%3A20)) Now if Jesus is leaving, and wont return until the restoration of all things, then how is He always with us until the end of the age? The answer is simple. He is the Holy Spirit.

As He said in John 14:17,18 (http://biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&version=NASB&passage=John+14%3A17) "the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; BUT YOU KNOW HIM FOR HE DWELLS WITH YOU AND WILL BE IN YOU. I WILL NOT LEAVE YOU ORPHANS I WILL COME TO YOU."

Jesus making it explicitly clear that He is the Holy Spirit in the form of a human body (dwelling with them) and soon He will be IN THEM. So when Jesus said He has to go away, and if not the Holy Spirit wont come. He wasn't saying He wasn't the Holy Spirit, He was saying, He in His humanity had to go away - (then as this verse stated He would return in Spirit (another Helper) to dwell in them. There is only one way that Jesus could leave, and not return but never leave anywhere and be with us always. If He is the One Omnipresent God who is Spirit (John 4:24 (http://biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&version=NASB&passage=John+4%3A24)) (the Holy Spirit).

This should help answer question #8

7b. Also, when Jesus returns, will He return in His body?

Yes.

7c.Will God's form then revert back to the form of the Son at a later date?

I see nothing in scripture that would imply that God will ever put down His express image. The Bible says we will see Him as He is (1John 3:2,3 (http://biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&version=NASB&passage=John+3%3A2)) and God Himself will be with His people (Rev 21:3 (http://biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&version=NASB&passage=Rev+21%3A3))

Revelation 22:1,3 (http://biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&version=NASB&passage=Revelation+22%3A1) speaks of the throne of God and of the lamb in the singular "but the throne of God and of the lamb shall be in it, and HIS Servants shall serve HIM" (Only One is sitting on the throne Rev 4:1,2 (http://biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&version=NASB&passage=Rev+4%3A1)) and Jesus is that One sitting on the throne (Hebrews 1:8 (http://biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&version=NASB&passage=Hebrews+1%3A8))